Bushfire broke at around 3 A.M. on a hillside around the Malibu Library area on Monday prompting authorities to issue temporary and mandatory excavation orders around the area. This comes after the National Weather Service issued a red flag in large parts of Sothern California citing concerns over a rise in strong winds combined with low relative humidity. The organization added The Santa Ana winds were the cause of this phenomenon.
Officials from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Malibu and firefighters from the L.A County Fire Department carried out temporary mandatory evacuations for the areas of Malibu Canyon road, Harbor Vista road, and Malibu Crest drive. Jeremy Stafford, a supervising fire dispatcher from the Los Angeles County Fire Department, said the firefighters had earlier estimated the fire to cover 6 acres, but they later put it at 2.6 acres with the winds peaking at speeds of 40 mph.

Luckily, no homes were destroyed by the brush fire whose cause has not yet been determined. The cause of the fire is still unknown. Randall Wright, who currently serves as a firefighting specialist, noted that such an early morning fire without an obvious cause such as lightning strike, car fire or house fire made the authorities to call upon Arson Investigators to help in determining the cause of the fire. He later added that Malibu usually experiences onshore winds in the early mornings. Mr. Wrights noted that these onshore winds had the capacity to push exacerbate the fires. However, the firefighters have been aided by the Santa Anna winds, which are also a force to reckon with in the state of California.

Three water-dropping helicopters were deployed to assist firefighters in dealing with the blaze, with over 200 firefighters on the ground. Officials reported that by 5 A.M the fire had been stopped from spreading and the blaze was 95% contained. The excavation order was lifted at around 6 A.M. The National Weather Service, which issued a Red Flag warning on Saturday night, expects the warm, dry and windy conditions in Southern California to persist until Monday night.
A small fire was also reported to have engulfed some parts around Oxnard in the early morning hours.

Fires in January are not a rare site in California, statistics from Cal Fire show that California has a five-year average of 86 fires in January. This year alone over 120, fires have been reported, and last year an overly wet winter limited the number of fire cases reported to just 12 cases.